Singapore’s crypto scene grew sharply in 2025 as broader Southeast Asia cooled. A new Chainalysis report finds the city-state’s institutional activity holding steady while small-value peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers exploded in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The difference stands out plainly. While Singapore tightened regulation, the region’s smaller economies moved toward less control. This led to Singapore remaining steady, and its neighbors growing more vocal.
Singapore’s Licensing Pivot
The MAS made local crypto firms serving overseas clients get a license or leave the business, and that happened in 2025. According to Tianwei Liu, CEO of StraitsX, the measure cut down speculative activity while letting more institutional players, including banks and large companies, keep using blockchain in production.
MAS added to its BLOOM program, a framework for trials with controlled stablecoins and digital bank money. Ripple became part of the project on March 25, signing on to test cross-border trade settlement using RLUSD. The program aims to move controlled assets into actual use, and Ripple’s involvement strengthens the effort.
P2P Growth Across Three Markets
The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam showed a rise in small-value person-to-person crypto transactions, according to Chainalysis. Combined, these three nations logged 5.4 million P2P transfers, with amounts under $10,000, during the reporting period. Even though they make up only 2.5% of the worldwide crypto market, those three countries accounted for 14.4% of all such transactions globally.
The figures point to the source of growth: small-value transfers are what’s fueling expansion in Southeast Asia, rather than the large institutional trades that dominate headlines in developed markets.
Across the three markets, well over four in five domestic P2P transactions fall below $1,000, carrying an average transfer size of $618. By contrast, the global average sits at $1,210. The contrast is clear: users in Southeast Asia tend to send smaller sums more frequently.
Why Remittances Drive the Numbers
The IMF has previously said that in the Philippines, officials see crypto use as mainly driven by remittances and investment. Personal remittances amounted to 8.5% of GDP in 2025, according to World Bank figures.
Money moves from workers living outside their home country back to their families through crypto, which cuts down on time and cost compared to conventional banking methods. This makes crypto a logical channel for such transactions.
The situation in Vietnam follows a comparable pattern. In June, Tuoi Tre reported that P2P trading has become an essential fiat gateway there, since the dong is not widely supported in direct crypto trading pairs. Three months earlier, Reuters noted that most crypto traders in Vietnam depend on overseas exchanges, which makes P2P channels a key means for users to move between local bank accounts and crypto traded on those platforms.
Stablecoins Lead the Cross-Border Boom
The movement of stablecoins between countries has grown throughout the region. Chainalysis found that cross-border stablecoin transactions topped domestic transactions in every market examined. The size of cross-border activity surpassed domestic activity by a factor of 3.2.
“Stablecoins account for a growing share in all three. Plausibly, the drivers of this adoption link to ease of use, speed and low transfer costs,” Chainalysis told Cointelegraph.
Both Thailand and Vietnam had notable stablecoin markets inside their own borders, with values of $10.4 billion and $6.9 billion, respectively. In both cases, cross-border stablecoin activity exceeded domestic activity by a wide margin.
Nichel Gaba, who runs the crypto exchange PDAX as its CEO and founder, has said that around 5% to 10% of the money coming into the Philippines from abroad is now settled with stablecoins. He also pointed out that big money transfer firms are pushing ahead with stablecoin settlement efforts in the nation.
In July, the Bank of the Philippine Islands announced a pilot project designed to reduce the cost and processing time of overseas payments made to Filipino freelancers and remote workers. The bank’s stated goal is to use a stablecoin settlement system for these transactions.
What This Means for the Region
The sequence is plain to see: Singapore moved toward stricter controls, while the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam moved away from them, and P2P activity rose sharply in those three nations.
Singapore stands out for its strong institutions, while the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam have seen a surge in P2P activity. Together, those three nations made up 14.4% of all global P2P transfers, even though they hold only 2.5% of the world’s crypto economy.
The drivers are practical:
- Remittances drive demand in the Philippines, where the IMF says crypto use is primarily driven by remittances and investment.
- Vietnam’s dong is not widely supported in direct crypto trading pairs, pushing users toward P2P channels.
- Overseas exchanges in Vietnam mean most traders need a way to move between local bank accounts and crypto traded on those platforms.
A picture of a shifting field is what the report delivers. Singapore moved toward stricter rules, the region as a whole shrank, and peer-to-peer lending took off across three nations. Each figure on its own tells the story.
Source material: “Singapore crypto activity grows 55% as broader region contracts,” Cointelegraph.
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